This book provides a highly accessible introduction to the main theoretical, empirical and policy issues that emanate from the economic analysis of sport.
This book lays down a marker as to the state of economists’ understanding of the National Football League (NFL) by assembling sophisticated, critical surveys of by leading sports economists on major topics associated with the league. The book is divided into four parts. The first three chapters in Part I provide an overview of the business of the NFL from an economist’s perspective. Part II is a collection of surveys of the economics of the NFL’s most important revenue streams, including media, attendance, and merchandising. The NFL’s labor economics is the focus of Part III, with chapters on player and coach labor markets, the draft, and contract structure. Part IV includes essays on competitive balance, gambling, economic impacts of the Super Bowl, behavioral economic issues associated with the league, and antitrust issues. This book will appeal to sports economists, sports management professionals, and policy-makers, and would be useful as a supplementary text for sports economics and management courses as well as a reference text.
This book takes a multi-disciplinary approach to analyzing the nature of ‘competition’ and ‘competitive advantage’ within the U.S. pro sport industry. By many measures, the four major pro sports leagues in the U.S. – the National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL), and Major League Baseball (MLB) – are now some of the most successful business entities in the country. While these established leagues have generally been highly profitable throughout their respective existences, the past two decades have been particularly lucrative, with franchise values in all four leagues growing rapidly, and at levels well beyond market rates of return. Within this context, the book seeks to explore the nature of the competitive advantage that these leagues apparently possess. The purpose is to identify not only how these leagues have been able to get to where they are today, but also to examine the competitive threats and opportunities that these leagues face as they move forward. A key contribution of the book is that it analyzes these issues from a multi-disciplinary approach including a traditional economics perspective, public policy and public choice theory and strategic management, to provide a parallel explanation for the success of each of the four major leagues. It argues that no single conceptual approach can, in itself, adequately explain the full richness of the issue. Its stresses that these various approaches should generally be viewed as complements, rather than as being mutually exclusive, and that a full understanding of the issue requires one to adopt a multi-disciplinary perspective, making it of interest to scholars in strategic management, sport management, and economics. It can serve as an effective teaching tool in both graduate and upper-level undergraduate courses for students in these fields, and is particularly useful for faculties seeking to emphasize to their students the importance of a multi-disciplinary, integrative, approach when analyzing business and management issues. The book may also be of interest to leaders within the sport industry itself, and will help to provide insight and perspective as leagues seek to enhance their competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Sports Economics, the most comprehensive textbook in the field by celebrated economist Roger D. Blair, focuses primarily on the business and economics aspects of major professional sports and the NCAA. It employs the basic principles of economics to address issues such as the organization of leagues, pricing, advertising and broadcasting as well as the labor market in sports. Among its novel features is the candid coverage of the image and integrity of players, teams, managers and the leagues themselves, including cases of gambling, cheating, misconduct and steroids. Blair explains how economic decisions are made under conditions of uncertainty using the well-known expected utility model and makes extensive use of present value concepts to analyze investment decisions. Numerous examples are drawn from the daily press. The text offers ample boxes to illustrate sports themes, as well as extensive use of diagrams, tables, problem sets and research questions.
Ever since the first Olympic Games in Ancient Greece, sports have become an integral part of human civilization. The last decade has been commemorated by the centennial celebration of the modern Olympic movement. With great anticipation, the Olympics return to Athens, Greece, and we are once again reminded that we live in one of the most exciting periods in the history of sports. Reflecting back on my years of service as the International Olympic Com mittee president, I cannot overlook the remarkable changes that have taken place in the world of sports during these two decades. The technological de velopment and consequent globalization of the world economy opened up a window of new opportunities for the sports industry. As a result, manage ment, economics, and other sciences have become a significant part of modern sports. It is my pleasure to introduce this volume comprising an interesting collec tion of papers dealing with various aspects of management, economics and optimization applied to sports. May this book serve as a valuable source of information to researchers and practitioners as well as to casual readers look ing for a deeper insight into the magnificent world of sports.
This timely Modern Guide offers critical insights into developments in both professional and recreational sports through the lens of the economic forces that determine them. It explores the benefits of the relationship between sports and economics, highlighting ways that economic research can help to understand sports better and the ways that sport provides opportunities to test economic theories.
The aim of this book is to provide an overview of perspectives and approaches to sports development focusing on sport systems, sport participation and public policy towards sports. It includes twelve European countries covering all regions of Europe and eleven countries from around the globe. The objective is to present an overview of the diversity of approaches taken to sport development, focusing on the different sport systems and how sport is financed, the underlying applications of sport policy and how it is reflected in sport participation. This book takes a comparative approach which is reflected in each chapter following a similar structure. The diversity of sports systems in Europe and other continents and their (historical) context is shown. Thereby a range of policy approaches underpinning sport development around the world are presented, making it of interest to both academics and policy-makers concerned with sports economics and policy.
Written for students with some exposure to economics concepts and analysis, this book defines the sport industry and reviews economic concepts before examining in detail such central issues as benefits and costs, the theory of the firm, profit maximisation as a major motivator, and alternative motivators in non-profit organisations.
'In the Handbook on the Economics of Women in Sports, Leeds and Leeds put together an impressive list of heavy hitters in the sociology and economics literature on sports to produce a tour de force volume. The entire spectrum of international perspectives is covered, from US, Korean, and Australian sports to world competition at the highest level of the Olympics and international championships. Whether your interest is attendance at women's events, performance and rewards in women's pro sports, gender issues in US college sports, or international performance and how women compete, this handbook is a must read for any serious fan, and for all serious scholars interested in the impacts of being female on sports performance and competitiveness.' Rodney Fort, University of Michigan, US 'Leeds and Leeds have filled a gaping hole in sports economics with this revealing collection of essays. The economics of women in sports has been too long neglected. By covering everything from women as sports spectators, to women as participants in individual and team sports at the collegiate and professional levels, to women's sports internationally, Title IX, and women's differential response to incentives, this volume not only demonstrates that there is much fertile ground to be studied, but also that the subject matter is both interesting and important.' Andrew Zimbalist, Smith College, US Women's sports have received much less attention from economists than from other social scientists. This Handbook fills that gap with a comprehensive economic analysis of women's sports. It also analyzes how the behavior and treatment of female athletes reflect broad economic forces. Contributors to this volume use current theoretical models and econometric tools to examine the legal, social, and economic forces that affect the experiences of female athletes. They address such traditional topics as discrimination against female athletes and coaches and the effect of athletic events on the economies of host countries. They also apply theory and estimation to new settings, such as how women respond to tournaments in skiing and figure skating or how the growing dominance of Korean women on the LPGA tour is a form of immigration. This groundbreaking book is a valuable resource for professors, students, and researchers in sports economics, sports management, and women's studies.
Sporting contests have provided mass entertainment throughout history, and today generate revenues of approximately $200 billion annually in the US alone. Like in the entertainment industry, the modern sports industry’s revenues are based on the entertainment value of output and more entertaining sporting contests imply greater game-day attendance, television revenues and sales of merchandise. Research by economists has attempted to understand and explain behavior as it relates to sporting contests, showing that standard microeconomic theory used to explain consumer and producer behavior can also be applied to the behavior of fans, team owners, league executives and players. One commonality among many ancient and modern sports is the existence of violence and aggression in contests. Compare, for example, a modern NASCAR race with a Roman chariot race: Only the technology has changed. From the perspective of an economist, violence in sporting contests is an outcome of the forces of supply and demand, and the phenomenon exists because fans respond to it. Spectator preferences for violence bid up the monetary return to this behavior, and the rational response is a more violent or aggressive output. The optimum level of violent or aggressive play in sporting contests is an empirical issue and this book contains chapters on violence and aggression in sports, concentrating on the reasons for the existence and persistence of such behavior. Following a chapter devoted to the history of violence and aggression in sports, subsequent chapters are designed to cover the breadth of international professional sports including American football, soccer, ice hockey, basketball, baseball, auto racing, and fighting sports. Each chapter will contain econometric analysis of violence and aggressive play in a given sport. The individual chapters will examine whether or not a given sports league or governing body should intervene to reduce violence, and where intervention is warranted, extent of appropriate interventions is evaluated. In addition to academics and students concerned with the economics and history of sport, the book’s emphasis on policies at the league and governing-body levels means this book will also be of interest representatives of those institutions. .